Root cert not installed in local store with `localias start`

[twalling]

Happy to provide more context here but we found that unless we ran localias run, we wouldn't get the root cert installed in the local store. Running it as a daemon did prompt for sudo but for some reason it wasn't the same as running it in the foreground. I wanted to report it in case other people ran into it, or if the documentation should be updated or if it's something that can actually be worked around.

[peterldowns]

Interesting, thanks for reporting the issue, and sorry for the trouble. It's quite likely there is an issue with localias, so I'd like to be able to fix it. Could you please help me by providing a little more information?

• OS / version
• localias version
• How you installed localias (brew, go, nix, binary download, etc.)
• Output from localias debug cert
• if you can reproduce this issue again, the exact steps to take so I can try to reproduce it myself, and any logs from the steps (output from localias start, localias run, file contents, etc.)

Again, thanks for taking the time to report the problem, all these additional questions will just help me fix it faster.

[twalling]

No problem. I didn't know where to start as far as what you wanted.

• Mac Sonoma 14.4.1
• 2.0.3+commit.c3c6d97
• installed via brew
• /Users/twalling/Library/Application Support/localias/caddy/pki/authorities/local/root.crt

I'm having a hard time reproducing. I'd have to figure out how to remove the root cert from the local store I think.

[twalling]

If it helps. There was a difference for us when running start vs run in how the Mac asked for elevated permissions. When running start it simply asks for sudo via the terminal. When running run, I got a Mac popup asking me to input my password to give permission.

[peterldowns]

Interesting, thanks for the more information. I'm taking a cursory look now but I will keep investigating as I have time over the rest of the week. Thank you again for your helpful replies. I have a few more followups:

we wouldn't get the root cert installed in the local store.

How did you know that the root cert was not installed in "the local store"? I'd like to know what behavior you expected, and what behavior you observed. If the behavior involves a browser, please mention which one.

I'm having a hard time reproducing. I'd have to figure out how to remove the root cert from the local store I think.

I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the local store", but you can remove entries from the system keychain by opening "Keychain Access.app" (search for "keychain access" with spotlight, or it should be in /Applications/Utilities/Keychain Access.app).

If you're using Firefox, you can check the Certificates manager by opening Preferences and then searching "cert" and clicking the "View Certificates" button. From there, find any localias-related certs in the Authorities tab and in the Your Certificates tabs and delete them.

If it helps. There was a difference for us when running start vs run in how the Mac asked for elevated permissions. When running start it simply asks for sudo via the terminal. When running run, I got a Mac popup asking me to input my password to give permission.

I'm on an older version of macOS but I cannot reproduce the behavior you've described about a difference between start asking for sudo in the terminal and run asking for sudo in a popup. You can check the code (cmd/localias/root/start.go, cmd/localias/root/run.go) to see that both commands begin by applying the config, which is what triggers the first request for sudo permissions (to edit /etc/hosts). So I'm not sure if this is related or not.

[peterldowns]

Following up — after totally removing all existing certificates on my system, I think I can explain the behavior you observed. I believe that you may have been accidentally closing the security popups prompting you to allow sudo/admin behavior when you ran localias start. Below, find all the steps of successfully accepting each sudo/security dialog prompt.

Observing the reported behavior

I think you could have observed the behavior by taking the following actions (referencing the successful flow below):

• Closing the first sudo prompt in step 3 will result in seeing a password input in your terminal.
• Closing the second sudo prompt will result in the daemon starting successfully, /etc/hosts being updated, but the localias certificate will not be installed in the system certificate store.
• Running localias stop and localias run will re-prompt you to authorize adding the certificate to the system certificate store. Doing so successfully makes it seem like localias run installed the certificate but localias start didn't.

Successful steps / debugging process

1) Check that there are no aliases, and nothing in the system trust store, and nothing in /etc/hosts

$ cat /etc/hosts
# Default entries
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

# Custom entries

$ localias list
# ... empty result

$ localias add peterdowns.local 8080
[added] peterdowns.local -> 8080

$ localias list
peterdowns.local -> 8080

2) Run localias start

3) Pause at the first sudo popup

At the first sudo popup, allow the action by either using your thumbprint or "use password" in the system dialog to allow the action. This will let localias update /etc/hosts. If you hit "cancel", this will show a password entry field in the terminal, and you can enter your password there.

4) Pause at the second sudo popup

At the second sudo popup, open a separate terminal and check that /etc/hosts has been updated as expected.

$ cat /etc/hosts
# Default entries
127.0.0.1 localhost
255.255.255.255 broadcasthost
::1 localhost
fe80::1%lo0 localhost

# Custom entries
127.0.0.1   peterdowns.local    #{"controller":"localias"}

Search again for "localias" in Keychain Access, and confirm there is no entry.

Finally, allow this action with either your thumbprint or "use password" in the system dialog. This request is for the first part of the certificate installation process — adding the localias certificate to the system certificate store, but in an untrusted state.

5) Pause at the third sudo popup (first "security" popup)

At the third sudo popup, which is the first one labeled "security" and contains the description "You are making changes to the System Certificate Trust Settings", pause before accepting.

Search again for "localias" in Keychain Access, and confirm there is an entry, and it is untrusted.

Allow the action with either your thumbprint or "use password" in the system dialog. This will begin the process of trusting the localias certificate in the root store.

6) Pause at the fourth sudo popup (second "security" popup)

At the fourth sudo popup, which is the second labeled "security", pause before accepting. This request is to confirm

Search again for "localias" in Keychain Access, and confirm there is an entry, and it is untrusted.

Allow the action with either your thumbprint or "use password" in the system dialog. This will confirm and complete the process of trusting the localias certificate in the root store.

7) Check that the localias certificate is installed and trusted

Search again for "localias" in Keychain Access, and confirm there is an entry, and it is trusted (finally!)

[twalling]

This is very detailed thanks.

I do not get this behavior though, nor did the other 2 people on the team. When we run start, we only get prompted for a password on the command line. The only time I can get a sudo popup is when I use run 🤷 . Your steps break down for me at #3.

How did you know that the root cert was not installed in "the local store"? I'd like to know what behavior you expected, and what behavior you observed. If the behavior involves a browser, please mention which one.

The cert wasn't trusted when we'd use our locally running server in chrome or safari. Based on the README, I expected the root cert to be installed and trusted in chrome.

I applaud how responsive you've been and if you really want to try to get to the bottom of my particular environment (and my teammates') I'd be happy to do a screenshare sometime with you so we can try to debug it. Just let me know :)

(edit: I'll also add that I'm happy with how I at least got it working. At a minimum maybe this helps you regarding any notes or FAQ you might want to add to the README.)

[peterldowns]

OK, I appreciate the help and I'm sorry that I can't reproduce the issue. I won't have time to upgrade my computer for a while, so until then I don't think there's much I can do. If you can write back in with a reliable way to reproduce the issue, and clearer details on what exactly you and your team are observing (are you all on the same OS version? are there any similarities or differences in your environments? etc.) and which expectations are violated at which step, I'd be happy to pick this back up. I'll also happily accept a PR if you can fix the issue on your own by modifying the source!

Again, thank you for your patience and I'm sorry I can't fix it. I'm glad that localias run was able to resolve the problem for you and that you're able to use the software. Hopefully anyone running into this problem will find this thread and let me know.

🫡 Sincerely, Peter

[ericf89]

If it helps. There was a difference for us when running start vs run in how the Mac asked for elevated permissions. When running start it simply asks for sudo via the terminal. When running run, I got a Mac popup asking me to input my password to give permission.

I don't have anything too useful to add except that I also saw this behavior. I initially chalked it up to my user error though until I saw this issue. 😅

No problem. I didn't know where to start as far as what you wanted.

• Mac Sonoma 14.4.1
• 2.0.3+commit.c3c6d97
• installed via brew
• /Users/twalling/Library/Application Support/localias/caddy/pki/authorities/local/root.crt

I'm having a hard time reproducing. I'd have to figure out how to remove the root cert from the local store I think.

I'm also on sonoma, so maybe it's something related to that. 🤔
I'm going propose adopting localias to my team in the next couple weeks so I can update if we see this behavior as well. Maybe grab a screencap of a fresh run through the install process.

[peterldowns]

OK, I've finally had time to upgrade my OS to Sonoma (14.4.1) and I have been able to reproduce the problem! I'm going to fix this by implementing daemonization in a slightly different way — instead of starting the Caddy server in the background/daemonized process, I'm going to start it and only then fork the daemon process. In some local testing, this seems to fix the problem. PR to come shortly, release shortly after that.

Thank you all for your patience and your help.

[peterldowns]

I'm very sure that the linked pr ^ will fix the issue (because I was able to repro), and I plan on merging and releasing a new version within the next week or so. If you'd like to sneak onto the next version before release, feel free to check out the PR and build a binary yourself! That branch also includes some nice quality of life changes, like localias start restarting your daemon if one is already running.

[peterldowns]

@twalling @ericf89 should be fixed now — if you installed via brew, you can brew upgrade localias to receive version 2.1.0+commit.46b0a47. Please let me know if for some reason this doesn't fix the issue, in which case I will investigate further.